Karenjit Kaur Vohra (born May 13, 1981), known by her stage name Sunny Leone, is a Canadian-born Indian-American actress and model, currently active in Indian film industry. She is a former pornstar.She has an American citizenship. She has also used the stage name Karen Malhotra.She was named Penthouse Pet of the Year in 2003, was a contract performer for Vivid Entertainment, and was named by Maxim as one of the 12 top porn stars in 2010.She has played roles in independent mainstream events, films and television shows. Her first mainstream appearance was in 2005, when she worked as a red carpet reporter for the MTV Video Music Awards on MTV India. In 2011, she participated in the Indian reality television series Big Boss. She hosts the Indian reality show Splitsvilla.In 2012 she made her Bollywood debut in Pooja Bhatt's erotic thriller Jism 2 (2012) and shifted her focus to mainstream acting which was followed up with Jackpot (2013), Ragini MMS 2 (2014) and Ek Paheli Leela (2015).Apart from her acting career she has been part of activism campaigns including the Rock 'n' Roll Los Angeles Half-Marathon to raise money for the American Cancer Society and has also posed for a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) ad campaign with a rescued dog, encouraging pet owners to have their cats and dogs spayed and neutered.Since 2011, Leone has been married to musician Daniel Weber.Early lifeSunny Leone was born in Sarnia, Ontario to Sikh Punjabi parents.Her father was born in Tibet and raised in Delhi, while her mother (who died in 2008) was from Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. As a young girl, she was a self-described tomboy, very athletic and played street hockey with the boys.Although the family was Sikh, her parents enrolled her in Catholic school as it was felt to be unsafe for her to go to public school. When she was 13, her family moved to Fort Gratiot, Michigan, then to Lake Forest, California a year later,fulfilling her grandparents' dream that the family be together in one place. She discovered her bisexuality at age 18.CareerBefore working in the porn industry, she worked at a German bakery, a Jiffy Lube, and later a tax and retirement firm. She also was studying to become a nurse.When picking a name for her adult career, she has said that Sunny is her real name and Leone was picked by Bob Guccione, former owner of Penthouse magazine.She posed for Penthouse magazine, and was named Penthouse Pet of the Month for the March 2001 issue, followed by a feature in the Holiday 2001 edition of Hustler magazine as a Hustler Honey. She has also appeared in other magazines including Cheri,Mystique Magazine,High Society, Swank, AVN Online, Leg World, Club International and Lowrider, while her online credits include ModFX Models, Suze Randall, Ken Marcus and Mac & Bumble.In 2003, she was named "Penthouse Pet of the Year" and starred in the video Penthouse Pets in Paradise alongside Tera Patrick and Kyla Cole. In 2005 Adam & Eve appointed her as their West Coast Internet Sales Representative.That same year, Leone signed a three-year contract with Vivid Entertainment with which she transitioned into the world of hardcore pornography, stating that she would only do lesbian scenes. Her first movie released was titled Sunny and was released in December 2005. Her next movie, Virtual Vivid Girl Sunny Leone, was the first interactive title for Leone, who was the first Vivid Girl to make such a movie. Taking only four days to film, the movie won her her first AVN Award (Best Interactive DVD). She followed this with Sunny Loves Cher, which featured her first on-screen squirting, and The Female Gardner co-starring Mikayla Mendez and Daisy Marie.Leone's last two movies under her contract with Vivid were It's Sunny in Brazil, which was filmed in Brazil, and The Sunny Experiment also starring Monique Alexander and Brea Lynn. The movies were released in October and December 2007 respectively.In May 2007, upon re-signing her contract with Vivid for another six films, Leone agreed to perform for the first time with men on camera, but exclusively with her fiancé, Matt Erikson. That summer she also received breast augmentation, and shot her first movie under the new contract titled Sunny Loves Matt. The movie led to her being nominated for three (out of six) AVN awards in 2009 in addition to being a choice for Female Performer of the Year. She followed up her first boy-girl title with The Other Side of Sunny in October 2008, which would be the last time she would perform with Erikson.In January 2008, Leone revealed that she was no longer exclusive to Erikson, and had done scenes with other actors, most notably Tommy Gunn, Charles Dera, James Deen and Voodoo.In 2009, Vivid released her only movie performing with other male actors titled "Sunny B/G Adventure". Her final release under contract with Vivid – "Undress Me", once again made her exclusive to performing with just one male actor, Daniel Webber.In August 2009, she announced the launch of her own studio, Sunlust Pictures, with Daniel Weber as her partner. With her new venture Leone announced her plans to write, direct and create her own brand of adult movies with Vivid Entertainment as her distributor. Her first independent production, The Dark Side of the Sun, was released in March 2009, and was debuted at the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas. In June 2009, she held a casting call in Las Vegas for her second independent production titled Sunny Slumber Party (released September 2009).She followed up with three other self-produced features Gia Portrait of a Porn Star (2010) which was nominated for multiple AVN awards,Roleplay (2011) and Goddess (2012) which featured her first anal sex scene.No longer exclusive to Vivid, Leone began working with other studios and performers since 2009. She leveraged her online popularity by striking deals with firms like PPPcard, AdultPokerParty.com, Brickhouse, Flirt4Free, Totemcash and Imlive to sell and distribute her content over the internet and other media. She won the "Web Babe of the Year" at the 2008 Xbiz Awards.Her websites and business interests are run under her banner company Leone L.L.C. She indicated in an April 2012 interview that 80 per cent of the traffic on her website, and 60 per cent of her revenue comes from India.In addition to her film career, Leone has been part of the Vivid Comedy Tour, and has modelled for the Vivid Footwear collection. Leone has also participated in events like the Vivid/ClubJenna Lingerie Bowl and Vivid's Hot Rod Night. Doc Johnson launched a pocket pal in 2006 moulded to her vagina, and in 2008 released the Sunny Leone Exciter vibrator. Control MFG currently uses Leone's image along with other Vivid girls to market their line of skateboards. She is paired with Gab Ekoe, one of the Team Control riders. She also indicated that she plans to launch her own line of lingerie and other Sunny-branded products including a diamond jewellery line.In September 2009, an iPhone application consisting of a collection of non-nude photos, some videos and a porn star-penned blog was approved by Apple for sale in the iTunes store, making it the first officially sanctioned application featuring a porn star. By February 2010, the app had been removed by Apple from the store.Leone was voted number 13 (up from number 41 in 2007 on Genesis magazine's "Top 100 Porn stars" list, number 34 on Desiclubs.com's Top 50 Coolest Desis of 2004, and one of the "40 under 40" ranking on AVN Online magazine. In 2010, she was named by Maxim as one of the 12 top female stars in porn. She was voted number 82 in the Top 99 Women for 2012 in AskMen.com's list.In 2013, she announced her retirement from the adult industry stating "I am lucky that the audience is accepting me. I have come my way from there (porn industry). I don't have any plans as of now to go back there."A police first information report was filed against her in May 2015 after a woman at Mumbai, India, complained that Leone's website, sunnyleone.com, was destroying the Indian culture. Thane police's cyber cell at Ramnagar booked her for sections 292, 292A, 294 which could land her into jail, fine or both. Senior police inspector JK Sawant stated, "We cannot block the website, but will ask the operator to remove objectionable content."In 2016 she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Who is Sunny Leone
Reviewed by VARGHESE PAULOSE
on
September 22, 2017
Rating: 5